Popular Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi appears headed for re-election, but there are plenty of interesting storylines in Monday’s municipal elections in Alberta.

Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi, above, appears headed to a comfortable re-election by a large margin, but the real drama surrounds the other 14 council seats, where development interests are trying to gain a foothold.

A group of developers seem intent on seizing control of Calgary’s city council; in Edmonton a young, Internet-savvy politician like Calgary’s mayor is seeking to take the helm, and a group of new contenders in Airdrie are running as a slate that has controversial ties to the province’s Wildrose Party.

Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi — who roared to victory in 2010 based in large measure on a wildly successful social media based campaign — appears headed to a comfortable re-election by a large margin. Among his more credible challengers is former alderman and former MLA Jon Lord, who is running on an “integrity matters’’ slogan that takes aim at Nenshi.

But the real drama surrounds the other 14 council seats, where development interests are trying to gain a foothold, according to Duane Bratt, chair of the department of policy studies at Mount Royal University in Calgary.

In April, a Calgary media outlet obtained a tape showing prominent homebuilder Cal Wenzel speaking to about 150 leaders in his industry and telling them that while Nenshi may be unbeatable, all that’s needed is the ability to control eight votes on council.

Bratt says the tape symbolizes what he sees as a divide between Nenshi and developers. Bratt goes on to say that rather than focus on his own certain electoral success, Nenshi is exerting efforts to fend off encroachment from developers.

“The big fissure is between developers and Nenshi. He is apposed to urban sprawl,’’ Bratt argues.

“Calgary has space to grow geographically, but Nenshi talks about the cost of services. So there’s been a real debate about how much these suburban development communities are subsidized as far as sewage, roads, recreational facilities etc, go. It’s about urban sprawl vs. urban density,’’ Bratt says.

Among the challengers for the council seats are businessmen James Maxim, and Kevin Taylor, police officer Sean Chu, and Jordan Katz, who has “spent the past few years working in the private sector,’’ according to his bio.

In Edmonton there’s no mayoral incumbent. A recent poll by Leger has Don Iveson, 34, an Edmonton councillor with a centre-left profile capturing about 54 per cent of decided voters.

Copying some of the social media techniques Nenshi has used, Iveson has been tweeting election-based information to his more than 10,000 of his own followers on Twitter.

If successful, Iveson would replace Mayor Stephen Mandel, 68, who is retiring from the 13-seat council.

In the rest of the province, there isn’t party politics at the municipal level, but in Airdrie and Red Deer there are official slates – where groups of individuals are running together on the same platform.

In Airdrie, a city of almost 50,000 just north of Calgary, a slate of four candidates calling themselves “Team Airdrie United’’ are vying for alderman seats on council — Mayor Peter Brown was acclaimed. Two members of the slate, Jane Anderson, who has operated daycares in the area, and event planner and businesswoman Angela Pitt are members of the provincial Wild Rose Party, known for its fiscal and socially conservative views.

In an interview, Anderson, whose son Rob is a Wild Rose MLA for Airdrie, says despite her ties to the party, the slate isn’t based on a Wild Rose “agenda.’’ She quickly adds that the two other slate members, Kevin Hughes, who has worked in business management, and businessman Mike De Bokx, aren’t Wild Rose members.

Still, her and Pitt’s Wild Rose ties have raised concerns about provincial party politics seeping into the municipal level in Airdrie.

More on thestar.com

We value respectful and thoughtful discussion. Readers are encouraged to flag comments that fail to meet the standards outlined in our
Community Code of Conduct.
For further information, including our legal guidelines, please see our full website
Terms and Conditions.